Ethis time it’s your turn Spain. Again. The Spanish team’s quest for its fourth European Championship faces a height it has only jumped twice in 47 attempts. That challenging obstacle consists of making the country that has a team that celebrates the European Cup win the national team final phase that is played that season.
The victory of Real Madrid in Wembley to achieve the Fifteenth places Spain before a challenge that has been common since 2014 due to the whites’ perseverance in adding Champions. The best team in the history of our football bent the knee just three weeks after the Decima in Lisbon. Not even that legendary team could withstand the curse.
Since the European Cup was created in 1955, there are only two cases that escape this harsh law for national teams. In 1974, the Bayern He was proclaimed European champion in Brussels against Atlético de Madrid. On July 7, in Munich, Germany He won his second World Cup.
The second case was within the framework of the Euro Cup and also with him Olympic Munich as a witness. There, the Netherlands they defeated in the final Soviet Union to close a great year of Dutch football. Because before PSV, To everyone’s amazement he had won his first European Cup: against the Benfica a Stuttgart.
In the history of Confederations Cup and of the League of Nations there are no cases.
The cases of Spain
During Madrid’s first five European Cups, the team was left out of the World Cup 58 despite her stars and in the first Euro she was disqualified because Franco denied permission to go to Moscow.
In 1966 the Madrid reigned again, but the reigning European champion went home in the first phase. The European Cup did not return to Spain until the goal of Koeman to Sampdoria. There was no case, because the success of Barcelona It coincided with the last final phase in which Spain has not been: the 1992 Euro.
In 1998 the Seventh arrived. and the selection of Clemente He hit it hard at the World Cup in France: three games and home. The curse of quarterfinals reappeared in the Euro 2000 and the 2002 World Cup, the years of the Eighth and Ninth.
He Barcelona Paris won the Champions League, over Arsenal. Spain fell in the round of 16 against France in Germany 2006. And Madrid’s cycle since 2014 is reflected in Spain’s goodbye in the first phase in the Brazil World Cup and in eighths in the 2016 euro and the Russia World Cup.
In the opposite direction, when Spain was European champion, in 1964 the double was close. But Madrid lost in One the final against Inter 3-1. Afterwards, clubs and national teams never got so close. In 2008, the cap was for Barcelonaeliminated in the semifinals by Manchester United. In 2010 history repeated itself, with the then team of Guardiola, taken out of Europe on the verge of the final by Mou’s Inter. And in 2012, Chelsea and Bayern They frustrated a Spanish final by taking ahead in the semi-finals Barcelona and Real Madrid. When Spain won the Nations a year ago, the Manchester City He had been European champion after eliminating Madrid in the semifinals.
England stayed close
In the last Euro Cup, England was one step away from joining Germany and Netherlands. Chelsea had won the Champions League in Porto against another English team, City. The three lions team was the big favorite in the Euro final at Wembley. More so when after a minute of play it was 1-0. But they ended up losing it to Italy on penalties.
